IT is an understatement to suggest that nearly six decades after its nominal independence, Nigeria is still faring very badly in its jousting with democracy.
Perhaps the country has been constrained by the kind of democracy they have chosen to operate; perhaps their inimitable talent for exploring shortcuts and charting an undisciplined approach to managing institutional strictures are suited for a different kind of democracy, say the Chinese variant or even the Russian model. If so, all Nigerians require is to find a consensus among themselves to redefine and practice a new democratic variant of their choosing, one suited to their many cultures, fetishes and longings. But in the absence of that consensus, if they cannot muster the will to redraw the basis of their association or dissociation, they have an obligation to faithfully practice the weakened democracy they have gifted themselves and at least sensibly extemporise the constitution they have pompously imbued with the extravagant declaration of ‘We the people’.
Perhaps the awkward implementation of the 1999 constitution, quite apart from the natural lack of discipline of Nigerian leaders, is simply because ‘We the people’ was a mere grandiose and otiose declaration absolutely lacking in foundation, conviction, coherence, philosophy and inspiration. It was both a constitution and declaration that monstrously sought to foist a political way of life on peoples with varying cultures emerging from different stages of civilisation. Nigeria’s founding fathers were fractious at the beginning, and largely never saw eye to eye when they drafted the principles of their association, a draft filled with despairing compromises. Worse was to come. With the constitution thus denied drive and conviction right from the beginning, it surprised few that it took only a little provocation to shoot it to pieces in 1966, overthrow the country’s initial dominant elite, foist an abominable military deal upon the country that worsened the provocation, and since 1966 subsequently constructed and operated grotesque and balkanised systems.
Getting it right, like Nigeria’s contemporaries in the 1950s have done, means finding the right political and economic mix to situate the country’s existence and grow its fortunes. The independence constitution was the closest the country ever got to getting it right. The 1979 constitution and its spinoff, the 1999 constitution, are an abhorrent piece of theoretical posturing which Nigeria’s undisciplined elite could never hope to operate. It tasked their patience and cultures, taxed their education and judgement, and demanded an exorbitant piece of their selflessness. They could not give any of these, obviously because they have nothing to give. Emptied of all sense and logic, and totally destitute of any sense of consideration for a national philosophy, Nigeria’s spendthrift elites have done their worst to worsen the situation.
It is, therefore, not an accident that Nigeria has been left behind, and is now facing the worst existential crisis since its founding. The independence government of Tafawa Balewa and Nnamdi Azikwe simply tried to build the country upon largely unrealistic assumptions; the Aguiyi Ironsi military government exacerbated their predecessors’ folly by imposing a singularly opprobrious and treacherous unitary system; the Yakubu Gowon government, as benign and pacifist as it became, lacked depth and substance; the Murtala Mohammed government was more disruptively iconoclastic than engagingly revolutionary as it hoped and postured; and the first Olusegun Obasanjo government revelled too much in ad hocism and short-termism to be of any substantial use to the country in the near future.
Saddled with the onerous task of laying a solid foundation for Nigeria’s democratic march forward, the succeeding Shehu Shagari government proved unequal to the task, partly because it was too pedantic to appreciate the complexities of the day and too short-sighted to spy the glories of tomorrow. Since the Shagari era, a government terminated ironically by the current president Muhammad Buhari, Nigeria has not seemed capable of putting the right foot forward. The first Buhari military government, which is neither philosophically nor even temperamentally different from his second coming in 2015, egregiously narrowed the country’s problem to both corruption and indiscipline, neither of which he attempted to understand nor provide the fundamental and multidimensional solutions needed to disentangle them and relieve the society of its malaise. That it was sacked less than two years into its reign was an indication of how unpopular and draconian it had become.
Fourteen years down the line, and two military governments and an usurper civilian government later, Nigeria’s problems have appeared to metastasise. The Ibrahim Babangida government, imagining itself to be a deft exponent of Machiavellian politics, simply elevated the crassest form of deceit into an art and state policy; the Ernest Shonekan interregnum, a dismal hiatus of theatre and propaganda, was a mere forerunner for the disaster that was to come; the Sani Abacha government, which was as hedonistic as the basest government can ever get, brutalised the country’s psyche, purloined its wealth, murdered its children, and robbed it of its dignity until mercifully death and decay put him out of his own private misery; and the Abdulsalami Abubakar government, which deliberately embroiled itself in a feverish race to return Nigeria to civil rule, bequeathed a constitution that has ensnared successive governments and prepared the ground for chaos and mediocrity from which there now seems to be no way out.
How 59 years of chaos has not persuaded Nigerian leaders to pause and think their way out of the pit they have dug themselves into is hard to explain. Chief Obasanjo on his return to office in 1999 simply assumed the problem was one of dedication, believing that past rulers floundered because they were not committed to a better Nigeria. He failed to anticipate the future and was not disillusioned by the folly of his unhealthy admixture of tyranny and pragmatism. The late Umaru Yar’Adua was too enfeebled by disease to be of any use to anyone, not to talk of a country distressed and disoriented by authoritarian rule. Goodluck Jonathan presided over probably the most undisciplined government the country has ever had, and while he instinctively understood the concept of democracy and paid token gestures to it, he pushed the country to ruin and ridicule. And now, purporting itself to be a corrective government, in much the same refracted way he saw his military government 31 odd years ago, President Buhari has proved eminently that military decrees and civilian constitutions can be unwholesomely harnessed for the same autocratic use.
President Buhari has not changed at all. Once his mind is made up, it is implacably made up. He may sit atop an elected government, but he is unable to fundamentally grasp the difference between a military ruler who brusquely presides over the affairs of a state and an elected president who presides over the same state whose geographical lines have neither been altered by geomorphologic changes nor by age. It is not his fault that he can’t tell the difference. He lived all his life a soldier, and therefore thinks, acts, and loves like one. Those who should help him appreciate the changes have reclined into sycophantic posture at his feet, ennobling his vague and unwelcome ideas and pressing him to ignore the spirit of the constitution and deploying the letter of the constitution as whimsically as he can.
Fortunately for the president, Nigerians, excepting a few, have been largely amenable to his dictations and are bowled over by his emotive and unrealistic interpretations of laws and democratic concepts. For the Buhari presidency, therefore, the rule of law is only for those who keep the law; while democracy can be deployed interchangeably with military rule, thus implying that a ruler must determine and embody the mores and values of the society. No one could dare insult that ruler without being dragged before a judge for treason. To this presidency, free speech and hate speech would depend on who is dishing them and who is receiving them. And since at independence a section of the country dominated top appointments and security offices, why, that anomaly can be replayed nearly six decades later, regardless of how much water has passed under the bridge or how deeply divisive and untenable such one-sidedness has become.
Clearly, for the duration of the Buhari presidency, assuming it can be coaxed not to tip the country over the cliff, there will be no political innovations, no entrenchment of democratic principles and practice, no significant adherence to the rule of law or a partial and short-sighted adherence, no independent judiciary, for all judges must be cajoled into conformity and submission, and no liberties of any substantial kind. The Buhari presidency inherited a diseased political structure, it intends to sustain it by force, of course citing the constitution, yes, the same short-sighted and impracticable constitution. What does the future hold for democracy and the constitution? This is a superfluous question to the Buhari presidency. The presidency’s worldview is encapsulated in the same demeaning cultural insularity that drives the Donald Trump presidency, a perspective that dichotomises Nigeria between one favoured group and the rest, a perspective upon which is spread the disguised veneer of sectionalism and exceptionalism in the name of nationalism. From all indications, not only is democracy deliberately endangered by the Buhari presidency, even the 2023 succession is encased in thick fog as a result of the machinations and manoeuvres of presidential aides and teams.
Nearly six decades so far, Nigeria has not made up its mind whether to embrace democracy or repudiate it, as their culture and instincts appear to dictate. If the county is to survive and flourish, however, it must make up its mind to be rigorously democratic. To this end, it needs a new constitution, whether the president likes it or not, for the current one is inadequate and untenable. It also implies that the country must wear a new structure, for upon it lies the kind of security systems Nigeria needs to prosper and stabilise, not forces of occupation which the present security agencies have become, and certainly not agencies that now seem to have acquired a life and negative momentum of their own and are increasingly posturing as if they are functioning in a diarchal role. President Buhari will of course be the last military general to rule Nigeria in a very long time; but notwithstanding this, the country must seek a president who has a large heart, sees the country as one, favours no section or religion whether by mistake or by design, understands how complex societies run, can appreciate economic issues no matter how complex, and has the far-sightedness to conceptualise political ideas and innovations, persuade the country to embrace his ideas and policies, and prepare them for a glorious future.
For 59 years, Nigeria was undone by its rulers, nearly all of whom had either the wrong mindset or the wrong heads. Even if Nigerians were sadists, they should by now be tired of foisting upon themselves maniacal and egotistic rulers who love to torment them. But judging from present discourses on the subject of 2023, there is little hope that real change is around the corner.